


The Seventh Day

by gnomesb4trolls



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Eleven | Jane Hopper Needs A Hug, Family Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Siblings Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23686588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gnomesb4trolls/pseuds/gnomesb4trolls
Summary: El deals with the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Starcourt, with the help of her new family.
Relationships: Joyce Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper, Will Byers & Eleven | Jane Hopper
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41





	The Seventh Day

El started counting on the very first night: after she met Joyce’s eyes in the parking lot, after the doctors and the flashing lights and then finally, finally the relative peace of the car, dim inside except for the occasional streetlight beam sliding over her. When they pulled into the Byers’ driveway she blinked in the yellow glow of the porch light, left on to guide them home as if this were an ordinary night.

Later, she lay on the couch in the dark and thought, _one_. One day without him, even though it wasn’t really a day. The hours since the parking lot already felt like too many, though, each one a weight in her stomach, so she decided that it counted. Counting gave her something to focus on, even though it didn’t make it hurt less. Words were still hard but numbers were—not easy, but familiar. They hadn’t cared if she’d known words, in the lab, but someone had taught her numbers, too long ago for her to remember who. She’d counted sometimes when they put her in the bath or the dark room or even when she couldn’t fall asleep because she hurt inside from wanting someone to talk to her or touch her the way Papa sometimes did when he was happy, but never for long and never enough. Sometimes it had helped her forget.

She had other ways to forget now, and she didn’t know how counting could possibly make this better, but she didn’t know what else to do.

She’d slept on this couch before, after she closed the gate last fall. El only remembered the rest of that night in snatches: Hopper carrying her back to the truck, the rumble of his voice as he’d explained that he was taking her back to the Byers’ because it was closer and she needed to rest, and everyone was there, anyway, and she could see Mike again. She had seen Mike, she thought, and then at some point he’d left and it had been dark and quiet except for Hopper and Joyce’s voices drifting in from the kitchen, and she’d slept. She’d woken early the next morning, the sky not even fully light. Hopper had been asleep in a chair, but Joyce had come in when she’d heard El stirring, giving her a tired smile. She’d run a bath for her and helped her into it and even washed her hair for her, and afterward she’d wrapped her in the softest, fluffiest towels and El had felt clean and new and real again, like something had settled into place that hadn’t been right since she’d left. Like she was finally where she was supposed to be.

There must have been a second day, but she couldn’t remember, afterward.

El took a lot of baths. She’d been afraid of bathtubs for a long time, after the lab, but now the Byers’ bathroom became her refuge. She would sink into the hot water and stare at the ceiling, drifting in blankness, and when she got out and wrapped herself in soft towels the pure pleasure of it was sometimes enough to block out everything else for a little while. It didn’t last for long, but nothing did.

On the fifth day, she learned that Eggos still tasted good.

They didn’t usually have Eggos in the Byers’ house, she didn’t think, but she came into the kitchen that morning and there were two already in the toaster, and when they were ready Jonathan put them on a plate and put the plate at her place at the table. She sat down and took a bite, and then pretended not to notice when Jonathan glanced at her and then away. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t either, but she ate the Eggos and they tasted good and for a few minutes everything felt like it could be all right again. This was something she was learning about Jonathan: he took care of people but he didn’t want them to notice.

On the seventh day, she got tired of lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling and she went to find Joyce. She was in her bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with a pile of clean towels beside her, folding them.

“Can I help?”

Joyce smiled, but there was something sad in her eyes. “Of course, sweetheart.” She patted the space on the bed next to her.

Joyce had to teach her how to fold (somehow Hopper had never taught her that particular skill), but once she got the hang of it she liked how it felt. There was something satisfying about turning each towel into a neat square and then stacking it on the pile.

When they were finished, Joyce put her hand over El’s, peering into her downturned face, and El made herself look back even though it hurt, to see her own sadness in Joyce’s eyes.

“I know that this is hard to talk about, but I wanted to say something about what happens next. Is that OK, honey?”

Joyce ran a gentle hand over El’s head, and she closed her eyes for a second before she nodded.

“OK,” Joyce said, taking a deep breath. “I just want you to know that I want you to stay with us permanently, if that’s OK with you. I know that we haven’t really talked about it…” El thinks of that night in the mall parking lot, only seven days ago even though it feels like a million years, and Joyce putting her arms around her and saying, _you’re coming home with us, sweetheart, don’t worry._ She hadn’t thought about what Joyce had meant by that, if she’d meant forever or just for now, hadn’t wanted to think about it. “…but that’s always been my intention. You deserve to have a good home, with people who love you, and I want to give you that.”

“Deserve?” El had heard Joyce use that word before, but she wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Oh, honey.” Joyce laughed a little, the kind of laugh that means someone’s really trying not to cry, and squeezed her hand. “It means…something that you should have, not because you earned it or…or worked for it, but just…because. Because you’re you and you’re important.”

“OK.” El still didn’t really understand how she could be important to anyone, without her powers, but she trusted Joyce. She had to trust Joyce, now. “I…want to stay.”

Joyce smiled at her, a real smile. “I’m glad. I know there’s not a lot of space, but we’ll figure something out so that you don’t have to keep sleeping on the couch.”

“But…”

Joyce stopped, and waited for her to finish, and she didn’t know how to ask what she wanted to ask, but she felt like she had to. “What about…Jonathan. And…and Will. Do they mind?”

Joyce squeezed her hand again, and the sadness was back in her eyes. “No, of course not. They think of you as a sister already, I promise.”

El knew what a promise meant. She had to believe.

Will took one step away from his mom’s bedroom door, then another, staying quiet so that they wouldn’t know he’d heard. He hadn’t meant to eavesdrop, he’d just been looking for his mom to ask her about something, and then he hadn’t wanted to interrupt. He shouldn’t have stayed, he knew that. But hearing El ask about whether he and Jonathan would mind her staying, in that small voice that made her sound younger than she was, did something funny to his stomach. He knew that it hadn’t been Jonathan who had made her feel like she might not be welcome.

He waited until Joyce had left for work that evening and Jonathan was busy making dinner in the kitchen, and then he found her sitting in her usual daytime spot on the couch. He sat down at the other end, slow and careful so as not to startle her.

“Hey,” he said.

She glanced at him, and he saw the flicker of surprise in her face that he was talking to her at all, and the knot in his stomach tightened. “Hey.”

“I just wanted to say…” He sighed, looking at his reflection in the TV screen to avoid her gaze. “I heard, earlier, when you were talking to Mom. I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I just…I wanted you to know that I don’t mind you staying with us. I want you to stay.”

She smiled, a smile so brief that he might almost have missed it if he hadn’t been looking directly at her. “Thank you.”

“I mean, I’m sure you’d rather be with Mike, and his house is bigger, but I can share with Jonathan if you want your own room, and…” He knew he was rambling now, but he just wanted her to feel better, and…

“No.”

“What?” He waited. He knew her enough to know that sometimes her words took a while, and you just had to wait.

“I wouldn’t rather be at Mike’s.” She took a deep breath, twisting her hands in her lap. “When you…were lost, the first time, and they made the bath for me to find you, your mom was there. And…she told me that she’d be with me the whole time, and that if it ever got too scary to let her know. And she…held my hand.”

Will knew this, he’d heard the story from his mom after he’d gotten back, but he’d never heard El tell it. He waited.

“In the lab, they…put me in the bath all of the time. And no one cared if it was too scary, or if it hurt. And when your mom said that, I wanted…to stay with her.”

Will’s chest felt tight. He’d never really thought about how everyone, even Mike, had latched onto El at first because they were so desperate to find him. It was a gift that he hadn’t known to appreciate, that he’d always had people who loved him for himself and not for what he could do for them.

“I remembered your voice,” he said.

She looked at him, face creased in confusion. “What?”

“When you found me, in the Upside Down.” Deep breath. He didn’t like talking about this, but it was the least he could do for her. “You held my hand, and you said that my mom was coming for me, and to hold on.” He had to suck in more air before he went on. “After I got back, I thought I’d dreamed it. But then, when we finally met, I recognized your voice.” He looked down at his hands for a minute. Breathe in, breathe out. “That’s why I…I wasn’t sure how to talk to you, or what to say. You’d saved my life twice, before we’d even met. I mean, what do you say to someone who’s done that?”

She smiled at him, just the whisper of a smile. “I understand.”

They sat there, and the silence stretched out, but the space between them felt peaceful, for once. Will could hear Jonathan in the kitchen, lifting a pot lid, running something under water. Something smelled good.

“I hope that we can be friends now,” he said. It felt like a silly thing to say, after everything that had happened this week, but it must have been all right because her face changed, relaxed in a way that he hadn’t seen since before Starcourt. “I mean, real friends, not just because of Mike and Dustin and Lucas.”

“Yes,” she said, and the tightness in his chest eased. She looked smaller now, not the superhero that his friends had breathlessly described in the hospital all of those months ago, or the girl that he’d seen throw a car. But maybe she deserved that, after everything, to just be a girl for a while. And maybe he could help her, the way she’d helped him before they’d even known each other. He didn’t really know how, but at least he could try.


End file.
